I have massaged athletes at all levels although none quite like Rod Smith so here is my account of Rod doing the 2011 Ultra Ironman.

I treated Rod in Sydney through different Ironman & local events, so when I moved to London and he told me he was coming to the UK to compete in the Ultraman UK competition, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be involved.

The Ultraman UK competition is a gruelling 3-day 320 mile ultra endurance event held in the beautiful countryside of North Wales, where the rain falls as sleet!

The schedule was as follows

Saturday - Stage 1 – 10.0 km (6.2 mile) circuit swim, taking the swimmer up the right side of Bala Lake (Llyn Tegid) 5 km (3 miles), around a marker, and back to the starting point (as you look at the lake from the direction of Bala town).

This is then immediately followed by a one-loop bike ride in Betws-y-Coed in Conwy County (to the west) 144.8 km (90.0 mile). This ends Day-1.

To prepare, Rod trained for 26 hours a week since the start of 2011, leading up to the competition.

To be his massage therapist, and part of his support crew, was an experience that you can never forget! The competition put Rod’s body through a tremendous amount of trauma and strain, to the point where I had to massage Rod both morning and night. Having said that, I was unable to apply any form of massage treatment to his body for a period of 12 hours after the third day of the competition. His muscles became far too sensitive by the end of the competition, and the mere thought of me massaging them made him wince!

Day-4 (1 day after the end of the competition), I was delighted to see how well his muscles responded to the massage, considering how tight they were shortly after the last event. By Day-5 (2 days after the end of the events), he was on track to feeling half normal again!

The regular massage sessions during the competition helped Rod greatly. But Rod’s speed of recovery was entirely due to the treatment leading up to the competition, and more importantly, the treatment after the competition.

Inflammation around his right knee had developed during the competition, which had increased to such a degree that during the double marathon, you could physically see the difference in size between each knee. But, by treating this with icing and the appropriate massage technique, the inflammation quickly dispersed.

Rod is a prime example of how massage therapy can 'keep you on track' to do the things you put your mind to!